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Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Leaked emails from the Sony hack revealed Snapchat quietly acquired a QR code startup called Scan.me late last year, and now we know why. Yesterday alongside Discover, Snapchat launched a new feature called Snaptags that creates a unique QR code for every Snapchat user. When someone points their Snapchat camera at a Snaptag, the app adds the corresponding person as a friend.

While unnamed in the UI, hacker Graham Smith sniffed the HTTP requests and found the code calls these QRs “Snaptags”.

The feature could solve a big problem for Snapchat: it’s a chore to follow people.

Since users find each other through often cryptic or goofy screen names, typing them in can be clumsy. Telling someone to “Go to Snapchat, go to add friends, and type in my weird nme” is annoying.

Now you can just say “Point your Snapchat camera at this image” and boom, they’ve added you. If you want to try it out, here’s mine, which you can follow for cynical snaps and goofy skits about the crazy gadgets and startups I come across.

Snaptags will be huge for Snapchat’s rapidly growing community of creators that use Snapchat Stories to entertain millions of fans. They can easily toss their Snaptag up on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook to score more followers.
Now it makes sense why Snapchat would want to pay $50 million for Scan.me, which built a system to connect QR codes to people’s identities.

Over the summer, Snapchat employee Steve Hwang emailed board members to tell them about an acquisition that would be “Super secret as usual (won’t be announced publicly),” of a company that “specializes in QR scanning/creation as well as iBeacon tech.” He explained that “7 engineers from Utah, who will be moving out in the coming weeks.”

Snaptags and Discover have a similar goal of getting people to spend more time on Snapchat. Snaptags help you connect to more friends and creators so you have more stuff to look at. And just in case you don’t have many friends or can’t find stars you like, Discover’s content hub offers professional-grade entertainment in the form of photos, videos, and news from outlets like CNN, Vice, and Comedy Central.

Snapchat is often thought of as just a messaging app. Snaptags show its ambition to be a full-fledged social network.